Remember one month ago Italian police seized an extremely dangerous pla letter opener and a teenager’s printer?
They’re back
First they seized “a factory” of PLA knuckles: https://www.ildolomiti.it/cronaca/2026/un-15enne-e-un-13enne-producevano-tirapugni-con-le-stampanti-3d-della-scuola-hanno-anche-minacciato-un-compagno-che-voleva-denunciarli (a 13 years old kid printed multiple copies with the school’s printer)
Now they went to the home of another middle schooler to seize his printer because he printed a prop from assassin’s Creed: https://www.rainews.it/tgr/bolzano/articoli/2026/02/lame-stampate-in-3d-sequestrate-in-una-scuola-di-bolzano-eb67732d-a7a1-4eac-842b-a0bf7a87e937.html
I feel much safer now that those factories of dangerous weapons are now seized
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I don’t think these really are the scare monger pieces you’re trying to frame them as. Both articles are very much so about some idiot teenagers printing and bringing 3d printed weapons to school. Police would have seized any tools the kids had been using to produce these items because thats how evidence collection works. Even your story from last month hinges around the items being found in a school.
Don’t get me wrong there are legitimate threats to 3d printing as a technology with proposed legistation in some US states aimed at curtailing 3d printed “ghost guns”. That fundamentally misunderstand the technology and instead are attempting to enforce a censorship mechanic that is entirely unfeasible. But these articles just arent an outcrop of the same kind of thing, IMO
kids have cutters and scissors in their stationery kit and that is more dangerous than this toys. They way they presented the evidence make it look like they seized some meth factory and not “kids underestimated that printing toys that look like weapons and bring them to school is not a good idea”
I mean, if kids bring or make weapons at school, what would you expect to happen?
exactly, these is not a “ThEyRE cOMinG FeR OuR PRinTERs!” stories. these are a couple of “some idiot teenagers in italy got caught making crappy plastic ‘weapons’ and bringing them to school to sell or show off to other idiot teenagers and a couple of news agencies picked it up cause it’ll generate clicks” stories.
They have scissors at school already that are way more dangerous than that hunk of plastic…
it’s the intent that makes the difference
How do they know about these prints?
First article says a peer reported them after being threatened
That is refreshingly non-fascist
yeah its just old school snitch bitch action
There’s nothing wrong with snitching if someone is unduly threatening you.
The article actually said the kid was threatened because wanted to snitch
Still wrong to threaten them. I don’t know about the Italian context but elsewhere there’s been lots LF news about kids killing or maiming people
Of course. But seizing 3D printers will do absolutely nothing to help with that.
The article writes as the two kids were printing the toys using the school 3d printer, a third saw what they were doing and wanted to report them, at that point they threatened him
How long until woods is banned from high schools because you can manufacture yourself some premium wooden knuckles
Wait until they find out what can be done with socks and some rocks inside them.
or a ready-made sack of Valencia Oranges.
Or a bag of nickels
I roll the nickles!
I usually don’t put my rocks in my socks to get my rocks off (ತ◞౪◟ತ‵)
Bold of you to assume that Italian highschools have a shop class, the 3D printer is probably part of the computer lab.
Source: am Italian.
the knuckles article mentions “white weapons”. is that a term of art in italian that i’m too not-italian-speaking to know?
Yes, it’s the literal translation of our term for bladed melee weapons.
To add to this, it is the general term for all non-firearms: so it covers also bludgeons and anything else you swing by hand.
Oh, I was convinced it was specifically bladed, as opposed to armi contundenti.
You always learn something new.
thank you
Man how fucking dumb are some of these kids…fucking printing knuckles on school printers!? (These will still break a jaw easily if used, and are illegal to even own in many places) Threatening another kid for reporting them for doing shit they’re not allowed to!?
JFC…
13 yo? If they’re anything like me that age, pretty fucking dumb.
I used to make wooden swords when I was even younger than that, and I sanded them until they were sharp. My grandpa would find and snap them.
Actually making weapons, plastic or not, on school equipment is a whole other level of stupidity well beyond regular 13yo idiocy.
Well yes, but also no. I went to school with a bunch of dumb asses who used metalwork classes to make “throwing stars”, and half of them haven’t been to prison yet.
I had an electronics teacher help me make “tripwires” to play a prank on a friend at school camp that would set off an airhorn once tripped, it was only after I finished he thought to mention “Don’t use these to trigger anything else, and don’t put the airhorn inside the tent with him.”
Teenagers and sometimes the engineers who fall in to teaching them can be astoundingly dumb and work the challenge rather than think of the consequences.
Eh…your garage door has a “trip wire” type device. They’re not just for traps.
He was aware of the use case. He was told in no uncertain terms what it would be used for and made suggestions around how to conceal the devices. I think we all know that there are certain people who will get so caught up working the problem that they often don’t think about consequences til much later.
Sir! Put that piece of wood down and nobody gets hurt!
